Rural Development and Self-Empowerment: Issues And Challenges

Today, Inclusive rural development is more specific concept than the concept of rural development of earlier, in broader terms, inclusive rural development is about improving the quality of life of all rural people. “Just as the whole universe is contained in the self, so is India contained in the villages. The dream of the Gandhiji was to see the village as self - contained and self sufficient. Therefore, for the betterment of people Gandhiji formulated 18 programmes, which includes the promotion of village industries, basic and adult education in rural areas, upliſtment of backward tribes, upliſtment of women, education in public health and hygiene, propagation of natural language, love for the mother tongue, economic equality, organization of kisans, labour and students and so on. Rural development is a term for improving the quality of life and economic wellbeing of the population that resides in villages. In other words, rural development aims at bringing about overall growth in the rural areas in terms of health, education and quality of life. The process of raising the standard of living and economic security of rural residents is known as rural development. Poverty and unemployment are the two sides of the same coin. When we solve one problem in the rural area , the second will be taken care along with it. In the present scenario, poverty and unemployment are the still most severe problems faced by the Rural area. Special income generation and socio-economic development programmes were introduced among selected target groups in the rural sector for small farmers, landless agricultural labourers and for scheduled caste and scheduled tribes. This new strategy was adopted because, after the critical review of the earlier plans and their achievements, it was found that the benefits of economic growth had failed to percolate to the lower income groups and weaker sections of the society. The majority of the rural poor own very little or no land at all. They are not educated and have no skills, so they cannot find employment. To generate skills among rural youths so as to provide self-employment and wage employment to them.